Millbrook had changed.
What had been a sleepy frontier town — a few hundred buildings, a muddy main road, a tavern, a market square — was now something else entirely. Cobblestone pathways ran through every district, the stones fitted with geometric precision, each one leveled and sealed with mortar that gleamed white in the afternoon sun.
Lamp posts lined every street — iron-wrought, tall, capped with vessels of the night: enchanted glass orbs that absorbed sunlight during the day and released a warm, amber glow after dusk. The town didn't just function after dark. It 'lived.'
The central plaza had been redesigned. A fountain — stone-carved, depicting a coiled serpent — stood at its heart, water cascading from its maw into a circular basin where children threw copper coins. Shops ringed the plaza in organized rows — bakeries, blacksmiths, apothecaries, tailors — each with painted signage, each with a proper storefront, each paying taxes to the lord's estate on time.
